Page 68 - The Venice Biennale 2001 issue of World of Art Magazine

eLiTe umbeRTO eco

Umberto eco was born in 1932 in Alessandria, Italy. He is a professor THE folloWIng IS An ExTEnSIVE lISTIng of THE WorkS of Eco
of semiotics, the study of communication through signs and symbols, The Island of the day Before (1995). Postscript to The name of the rose (1995).
at the University of Bologna, a philosopher, a historian, literary critic, and The Search for the Perfect language (1995). How to Travel with a Salmon and
an aesthetician. He is an avid book collector and owns more than 30,000 other Essays (1994). Apocalypse Postponed (1994). Six Walks In the fictional
volumes. The subjects of his scholarly investigations range from St. Thomas Woods (1994), Misreading (1993). Interpretation and overinterpretation (1992).
Aquinas, to James Joyce, to Superman. He lives in Milan.

UMBErTo Eco And PETrU rUSSU* MIlAno 1989 (*PETrU rUSSU, fInE ArTIST And THE PUBlISHEr of World of ArT

A conversation on information these books - well, that index is a reasonable index which focuses only on
by PATrIck coPPock its offices and library. The walls of the office are covered with rows of round 11,000 or so tokens... SoUrcE: HTTP://WWW.cUdEnVEr.EdU/~MrYdEr/ITc_dATA/Eco/Eco.HTMl MArTIn rYdEr
the larger, more intensive treatments of the word ‘Jerusalem’ - I would have
A chain-smoking and jovial umberto eco receives me in his crowded,
found say 10 or 15 tokens of ‘Jerusalem’ which I would have been able to
untidy but cheerful little office at the institute for communication
examine. Unfortunately I now have the Aquinas hypertext...
studies at the university of bologna. A bay-window opens out onto a
He glances again at the computer in the corner... and there I found, that
tiny balcony overlooking the garden of the villa where the institute has
there were - well I don’t remember the exact number - but there were
well-filled bookshelves; a sofa along one wall is full of piles of papers,
Working with 11,000 references is just impossible. That’s far too many.
books and articles, a modest writing desk hidden under even more
“So the system you use doesn’t ‘filter’ well enough in other words?”
books and papers. in one corner of the room is an ibm 486 clone with
I cannot manage to scan as many as 11,000 tokens. now, if I had only my
Windows, a new article or book obviously in progress on the screen.
old traditional limitations then I would probably have done something more
eco offers me a chair in front of his desk.
or less reasonable on that particular topic.
in advance i had given him a list of some possible issues we might
“That’s because the human person who is searching does it in a kind
of sensible, intuitive way, whereas the computer just does it in a very
discuss so he would have some idea of what was on my mind: computer
technology, the internet community and processes of cultural change.
mechanical way and just picks out every single example?”
My theory is that there is no difference between the Sunday new York
i begin by asking:
have 600 or 700 pages altogether really just contains old news fit to print. But
“Professor Eco, you’re a man of letters, a writer, philosopher, a historian.
one week is not enough to read a number of the Sunday new York Times. So
on the desk beside you is a computer. Is modern computer technology
therefore, the fact that the news items are there is irrelevant, or immaterial,
actually functional for you as an author and literary researcher?”
because you cannot retrieve them. So what then is the difference between
Eco glances over at the computer, smiles, then nods thoughtfully:
the Pravda, which didn’t give any news, and the new York Times which
Yes, but sometimes the computer can also give paralyzing results. I will give Times and the Pravda of the old days. The Sunday new York Times that can
you an example: I was invited by Jerusalem University to a symposium whose gives too much? once upon a time, if I needed a bibliography on norway
theme was the image of Jerusalem and the temple as an image through the and semiotics, I went to a library and probably found four items. I took
centuries. I did not know what to do on this particular topic. notes and found other bibliographical references. now with the Internet
Then I said to myself, well ok, I have worked with stuff from the beginning I can have 10,000 items. At this point I become paralysed. I simply have
of the Middle Ages; my dissertation was on Thomas Aquinas. to choose another topic.
He points to the rows of well-filled bookshelves on my left... “So information overload and this extreme, non-intuitive selection of
Here I have all the works of Thomas Aquinas with a reasonably good information is the main problem?
index, and I looked there to see how many times he quoted Jerusalem and Yes, we have an excessive retrievability of information. It is neither ironical
tried to say what use he made of the image of Jerusalem. now, if I only had nor paradoxical, I think, what has happened with xerox copies.
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